


Those who stray

by Mothwood (DeadOak)



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Darkspawn, Drabble, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I don't know where this is going hold onto your seat, Long-Haired Mahariel, M/M, Nightmares, bowman Mahariel, fuck me up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 00:52:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5847499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadOak/pseuds/Mothwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mahariel didn't really expect any of this. He feels like he's walking through a dream.<br/>It's not a good one.</p>
<p>A series of drabbles that I write in my kik and facebook messages to hurt myself and my friends with feels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shadows

It's like a waking dream, thick and murky but present in his mind. He stares blankly ahead of him, at the creeping shadows and mists. He's sure it isn't real, not when he had just felt the fire's heat on his skin, the soft wool of his blanket as he lay down in his tent in their camp. He heard Leliana humming as she is wont to do, Alistair complaining and Morrigan snarking with levels of skill previously unheard of.   
Then this. It's the strangest dream he's had so far, and the nightmares of darkspawn are not exactly uncommon since his initiation. More than once he's woken sweaty and wild-eyed.   
This is calm and cold as too-still, unreal and unwelcoming. He goes to step forward but it's like his legs are sunk in swamp mud, sticky and heavier than Sten's armour. His green eyes flick to the undulating shadows as they swirl and begin to form a familiar shape.   
He wants to scream, struggling even harder to move forward now, tears welling like diamonds. The tattoos on his face pull slightly as he grimaces, desperately reaching for Tamlen in a last ditch effort; the shadowy elf smiles fondly at him and stalks forward and he almost wants to believe this isn't a nightmare as warm hands cup his face gently. He melts into the kiss, eyes closing and tears still running down his face; the smell of grass and trees and clear air surround him and he remembers all the stolen kisses when they were out in the forest, the harmless jokes and camaraderie, the soft looks and sweet whispers when no one else was there to witness.   
And then Tamlen's lips twist and gnarl against his, fangs tearing at his skin and he doesn't even have the will to fight back as his best friend screams in a voice that echoes- "/YOU DID THIS TO ME!"   
Mahariel wakes with tears in his eyes and blood in his mouth, lips bruised and torn.


	2. Red Hair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He just wants to put it behind him.  
> His mind wont let him.

Mahariel has always liked his long hair- Ashalle once let slip that it looked much like his mothers had. He'd held onto that fact long through his childhood, refusing to let anyone cut it. The keeper gifted him a thin comb to help him get the knots out on his twelfth summer and he'd kept it on him since, useful even though some of the teeth had broken off from age. 

Tamlen was the one who first told him that his hair was pretty, asked if he could put braids in it. Every year when his hair had grown out further Tamlen would renew the braids- and sometimes if they were alone, he would renew his statements of affection with a kiss. Seven years of braiding, seven of quiet laughter and chaste kisses- and now Mahariel stares at the cracked mirror on the wall of the dusty tavern and undoes first one braid and then the other, tears in his eyes as he observes how long his hair has grown this year. He has to take a few deep breaths before he redoes them, tight to his scalp. They don't look right- Tamlen's were neater- but he brushes it off.   
It causes a deep ache in his heart and he wonders what did more damage- losing Tamlen or gaining the darkspawn taint.   
If Morrigan notices his red-rimmed eyes the next day she says nothing. Leliana and Alistair prattle about something and Sten is stoic as usual. He's glad for it. He doesn't want pity.   
Instead Mahariel takes comfort in the swing of his braids whenever he turns his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are all short and shitty forgive me


	3. Bowstring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mahariel hates daggers. He doesn't like the feeling of blood on his hands. There's enough already.

Alistair calls it trauma, the way he sometimes freezes mid-draw, arrow nocked and centered with impeccable aim on his enemy- but his arms stiff and eyes empty. He doesn't release the arrow until he's 'snapped out of it'. Morrigan says its weakness and Leliana just looks at him in pity. Sten just thinks he's incompetent.   
Mahariel doesn't know what to call it except a memory; whenever he draws the bow Ilen gifted him he feels Tamlen's lips at his ear, murmuring encouragement, ghostly hands pushing him to aim straighter, pull back just a little further so that the string is taut. Mahariel hasn't missed a target since he was young, but Tamlen has always been the better bowman.   
/Was/ always the better bowman.   
He used to give him tips and tricks- and after the night they whispered that the only person they'd ever want to be bound to was the other, he'd accompanied his lessons with fleeting touches, sometimes standing behind him, molding himself to Mahariel and guiding his hands.   
Now it brings him no warmth, just loss and emptiness.   
He wonders if it's a ghost, or if he's just crazy. Alistair assumes it's due to the near death experiences he's been through, tries to offer advice and comfort which means nothing and helps little.   
Leliana seems like she knows it's more than that.   
Morrigan just scoffs at him and Sten seems to want to hit him.   
Mahariel learns to work through the ghostly whispers, the soft touches.   
He tells himself it's not real, ignores them.   
Then one day he doesn't- surrounded by darkspawn, Zevran and Morrigan struggling, Alistair down- he follows the hands and his arrows fly faster than ever before, landing in places that he's been hard pressed to hit- the first darkspawn goes down with an arrow in its eye, the next, it's throat, through a knee where Zevran finishes it off, another into the ear slot of its helmet and deep into its brain, and the last one shatters a hemlock that Morrigan has frozen.   
Tamlen whispers praise in his ear and his heart soars, lost in the moment.  
And then he's grounded when he turns, eyes alight and lips turned into a grin, and finds nothing but empty space behind him. His hands tighten on his bow and his expression falls back into practiced apathy as he picks his way down from the hill he chose as his vantage point to help Alistair up out of the mud, ignoring the mans cheers and gratitude.   
He doesn't deserve it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuck me up. fuck me up inside. i done fucked up. fuck me up inside. FUCK ME

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive me


End file.
